Charlotte Mason

[classical music] Welcome to the Charlotte Mason Poetry Audio Blog, where we strive to share an authentic interpretation of Mason's life work.

We thank you for joining us and hope you enjoy the program.

Swedish Drill in the 21st Century by Melissa Peterman.

Mason saw the value of fairy tales and the courage that they inevitably produced in our children, which is one of the many reasons why her programs were so rich in literature.

But there's another aspect of this quote worth analyzation outside of character traits produced by the written word, the physical side.

We often wax eloquent over the benefits of a Charlotte Mason education upon a child's mind and soul, but what about their bodies? After all, are we not whole persons consisting of more than just a mind and soul? And would it not be neglectful of the education of a born person to give them a feast of ideas regarding literature, mathematics, science, the Father in Heaven, and the arts, but neglect the very vessel that will house them in the pursuits of these things? Have we not seen many geniuses throughout history whose lives were cut short due to physical neglect or abuse, leaving us only to lament, "If they had had more time, I wonder what they would have accomplished?" Thankfully, Mason's pedagogy encompasses the entire whole person, mind, spirit, and body.

After all, what use is courage to fight the dragon if one has not the strength to lift a sword? When we analyze Mason's programs regarding physical education, we see a variety of activities just as rich in diversity as her history and science.

They're full of skills, games, marching, dance, and so much more.

Um, I was homeschooled from third grade all the way through senior year of high school.

So K through second, I was in a very precious private school and that did a lot of nature studies and had a very Charlotte Mason oriented method at the very beginning of the years.

And so that was really sweet and kind of flowed very nicely into being homeschooled.

But yes, homeschooled all the way through.

Since Charlotte Mason lived more than one hundred years ago, it's natural for the question to arise, is her approach to education still relevant in today's world? We're exploring that question and looking at modern research to help us answer it.

Today, we want to look at what the research tells us about a liberal education as opposed to a limited education.

In other words, giving our children a wide variety of subjects.

[upbeat music] Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast.

I'm Sonya Shafer.

In our technology-saturated culture today, we hear a lot about the importance of studying science, technology, engineering, and math.

We hear about it so much that we might start to think that those studies are the most important in our children's education, but there's solid research to bring us back to a more balanced approach, the kind of approach that Charlotte Mason advocated, an education that gives your students a wide variety of subjects.

A Charlotte Mason education spreads a feast of subjects for our students to explore, not just math, science, and language arts, but also history, geography, Bible, music, nature, literature, poetry, Shakespeare, Plutarch, handcrafts, and art.

... than how to require cooperation with a parent's morally superior vision of what it means to be a civilized human on the planet.

And this is where, as a young homeschooling mom, I feel like I benefited so much from all the reading I was doing and all the discussions that we were having online about different types of education methodology and paradigms, right? I know that, for starters, like, Charlotte Mason's thoughts about atmosphere really kind of kicked me right into that space of what you were just describing about my job as a parent-educator is to try and make it this, um, experience where they have buy-in, where they're learning out of an organic desire, right?

Right.

And if we think about the classroom for a minute, which most of us are rejecting by bringing our kids home, the teacher at the front of the room has been taught classroom management tactics.

There's using manipulatives.

And for most parent-educators- We don't even know what the array of options are.

Do you remember that feeling, Melissa? Like, as I began homeschooling, I was introduced to these theoreticians, right? I would read somebody like a Charlotte Mason or a John Holt or someone like Raymond and Dorothy Moore.

Yes.

So I want to read that, especially as I'm raising two little boys.

I have a couple of Charlotte Mason, Charlotte Mason, Charlotte, Charlotte Mason books on my TBR because we are journeying into homeschool.

We're starting our first year in like the next couple of days.

And I'm so excited to be able to do this.

I'm trying one this year.

I'm trying the peaceful preschool by the peaceful press.

I know it's more of that Charlotte Mason kind of style.

Um, so I don't know if that's going to work for our family.